MPs adopt committee report on Sh3.66 trillion budget

The government will have to borrow at least Sh2.6 billion daily to finance its operations after MPs adopted the report of the Budget and Appropriations Committee (BAC) on the Sh3.66 trillion budget for the 2021/22 financial year.

This came even as MPs Aden Duale, John Mbadi and Kimani Ichung’wah were apprehensive that the budget portends difficult times for Kenyans ravaged by unemployment made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The passage nevertheless, paves the way for the budget highlights and revenue raising measures to be presented by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani on Thursday afternoon.

But even as this happens, the conspicuous feature in the budget remains the huge Sh952 billion hole that now opens the floodgates for increased taxation and ballooning of the debt ceiling from the current Sh9 trillion enacted in 2018.

What should worry Kenyans more is that for every Sh100 that Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) collects, Sh66 will go towards debt repayment.

Of the Sh1.33 trillion allocated to the Consolidated Fund Services (CFS), about Sh1.2 trillion has been budgeted for debt repayment in the 2021/22 financial year with Sh1.2 trillion going to the recurrent budget.

This means that debt repayment and recurrent expenditure will have taken all the projected Sh2.039 trillion in revenue with Sh660 billion in development budget yet to be financed.